Cyan
by Illyria Lives
Summary: Each chapter chronicles the adventures of a group of sassy, luckless undergrads who have too much time on their hands and a leader named Enjolras-that is honestly his first name (and who the hell names their kid that)-and overall they are just very, very strange, in the best possible way. Modern college AU, multiple pairings.
1. Cyan, or: The Late Night Saga

**Rated for cursing because it's too late for me to fucking censor myself or my writing.**

**Also, when re-reading I noticed that I forgot about Feuilly. Fuck.**

* * *

If anyone deserves the blame, it's Enjolras.

But since Enjolras is Enjolras, of course everyone ends up staring at Combeferre instead.

He sighs, standing. "Fine. I'll pay for the pizza."

"Bless you," Grantaire says sweetly as he walks by.

"Yeah, yeah."

The entire group had gathered at Combeferre and Enjolras's shared apartment for a study session of epic proportions, everyone arriving loaded down with textbooks, notes, and any mixes they might need for their caffeinated pleasure later in the evening. But when it became clear to them that no one had thought to bring any food, they en masse abused Combeferre to make the call to the local pizzeria and then pay for the five extra-large circles of cheese, grease, and sausage.

Armed with pizza, coffee, and the will of a group of staring down the barrel of their grades for the semester, they set to work, sprawled across the floor, couch, and kitchen table of the apartment, hunched over their books and scribbling in their notes. Eponine propped her feet up on the coffee table that Cosette had her notes spread out on, Marius sitting cross-legged beside her and occasionally running a hand along her leg, making her smile. Combeferre, Enjolras, Grantaire, and Joly sit around the kitchen table, and Bahorel leans his back against the cool door of the refrigerator earbuds in and by the banging of his head over his English notes, is blasting something from the 80s.

Several hours pass, only interrupted by strained looks and multiple trips to the coffee machine.

Eventually Marius drops his book with an audible sound of despair. "I can't do this anymore," he says before standing, swaying, and then sitting down again. His head gets buried under his arms and where there would usually be comforting looks and pats there is only the horror of a group of undergrads looking their own demise in the cold, leather-bound face.

After a moment of silence Courfeyrac props his chin in one hand and sings a horrifyingly upbeat voice, "If you're fucked and you know it, clap your hands!"

The only sound in response is the sound of Jehan throwing a pillow at Courfeyrac's head with a loud slap.

Bull's-eye.

* * *

They lose Joly sometime around midnight.

He stands up from his study session, announces that he's going home, and then walks into Enjolras's bedroom, collapsing onto the bed with a loud sob. The owner of the bed currently occupied looks like he wants to put Joly on the right track (namely, away from the pillow he is currently drooling on), but instead he sighs and pours himself another cup of coffee.

After that, no one is ever really aware of what time it is. It's better not to ask, and none of them want to know anyway.

The rest of the night is measured by the outstanding incidents that they can still remember come morning: Bahorel started laughing like a lunatic and had to be herded into the hallway for a half an hour before letting himself back in with the serene expression of a man returned from the brink. Grantaire made everyone look up from their books and blush as he found his coffee cup empty and made a noise that no man should ever make in public.

"My eye. Won't stop. Twitching." Courfeyrac clamped one hand over the eye in question and looked to the nearest authority figure, since Joly the medic was out of commission for advice. "'Ferre, what should I do?"

"Shut the fuck up?" Combeferre offers kindly, squinting slightly through the blur on his glasses.

Courfeyrac is far too tired to deal with this shit, and he turns to Enjolras hoping for some better advice (Lord knows that Enjolras had problems with his eye twitching most times Grantaire spoke up at meetings with some contrary comment or another) but all he gets is a level stare from beneath a layer of loose yellow curls.

Courfeyrac wises chooses not to speak.

* * *

Bossuet stands up, cracking his back loudly, before trundling into Enjolras's bedroom and collapsing next to Joly.

Jehan wakes up at Combeferre's insistence, one cheek dented with the shape of the calculator he had fallen asleep clutching. The number 18 had been pressed enough times for the calculator to call ERROR.

Cosette falls asleep leaning on Marius. Marius falls asleep leaning on Eponine. Eponine falls asleep halfway between the kitchen and the living room. Combeferre tries his hardest to stay awake, but the next thing he knows it's nine in the morning and his neck hurts like hell because he fell asleep with his head hanging backwards over his chair.

Grantaire and Enjolras remain awake past the others.

Enjolras can't help but groan loudly as he drags his hands down his face, trying to stay awake.

Grantaire smirks. "Need another cup, Apollo?" he asks, slurping loudly at his coffee-everyone had eventually stopped around their fifth cup, but R was still going strong somewhere in the early teens-and Enjolras shoots him a glare that is marred by how ridiculously debauched his hair looks.

Grantaire can't help but snort and although he is almost completely sure that he'll regret it later, Enjolras snaps out "What's so funny?"

"Your hair," Grantaire chuckles, pointing, "It looks like you just got laid."

Enjolras opens his mouth to answer but nothing comes out because what kind of fucking observation is that how could he respond to it without looking stupid?

Grantaire shakes his head a little and goes back to his history textbook, clamping down the cap of a highlighter in his teeth as he scrawls lines across the page. Then he spits it out (nearly misses the precariously sleeping Combeferre) and decides to just read. As he does so, he silently mouthed the words, and Enjolras finds himself looking up more and more from his Government textbook to watch. He could make out that Grantaire was somewhere in the French Revolution by how often he formed the word "guillotine".

Eventually Grantaire looks up and asks, "What?"

"What?" Enjolras echoes, giving himself a small shake.

"You said something."

"No I didn't," Enjolras says, before remembering that yes, yes he did, and asks, "Can you stop that?"

"Stop what?"

"That," Enjolras motions towards him. "The mouthing thing."

"As you command, Fearless Leader," Grantaire smirks a little and positions himself so that the top of his textbook blocks the lower half of his face from Enjolras's view. "Better?" he asks in a tone full of amusement.

Even though he knows that he'll get ribbed endlessly for being so petty tomorrow, he nods. "Yes."

Grantaire rumbles a laugh before going back to studying. Enjolras tries to do so as well, but Grantaire's eyes are a really strange shade of blue-green and they don't move from side to side when he reads-they hover, swoop down and then up, hover, forming small circles, before looking to the next word.

"What?" Grantaire demands, slamming down his book with an incredulous expression, "You want me to do_ what_?"

"What?" Enjolras echoes, grinding his hands into his eyes in an attempt to make them less heavy. "I didn't say anything."

"You told me to close my eyes?" Grantaire positions his hands in a pose that shows his confusion. "Are you _high_?"

"Are you?" Enjolras snaps back. God, it's unholy how Grantaire still managed to keep his brain working at this unholy time of night.

"I'm not high," Grantaire challenges, "And I'm not sure that four in the morning counts as 'unholy'."

Oh. Enjolras wasn't aware that he had spoken aloud.

He groans once as he sets his forehead on the table in front of him. He groans a second time, louder and more keening, as he remembers that his bed is currently being occupied by an undetermined over-aged undergrad and his pre-med boyfriend.

Enough was obviously enough.

With a loud sigh Grantaire sets his book down and stands, walking over to Enjolras. "You are as close to drunk as I've ever seen you," he announces.

Enjolras says something vague about Grantaire being as close to sober as he's ever seen him, but it doesn't quite make it out of his mouth because Grantaire is helping him up and down the hallway towards Combeferre's currently open room. Inside, there is a truly horrifying amount of French Opera CDs and one half of his period weapons collection. The other half had been claimed by Javert from campus security last year on account of being against school policy.

"C'mon, Apollo," Grantaire urges as he half-drags, half-carries him to the bed. "Christ, how much do you weigh."

Enjolras snaps something about Grantaire being sober as he hits the mattress with a strained noise of relief. Grantaire remains standing, an amused smirk on his lips.

"And then there was one," he muttered to himself, dragging a hand through his dark curls as he walks back out to the living room, to either study more or to hit the lights over the other sleeping students still marooned there.

"Your eyes," Enjolras calls out in a thick voice as Grantaire reaches the door, "What color_ are_ they?"

Grantaire pauses in the doorway, opens his mouth, and closes it, looking down. "Get some rest," he says. "It won't matter in the morning, anyway."

* * *

The morning is chaos.

Bahorel is missing both his shoes and one of his socks, Jehan's hair is a bird's nest and he can't find his favorite green ribbon, Marius still can't move his legs after an hour of pins and needles, Eponine somehow maneuvered out of her bra and now it's gone, Combeferre is grilling Joly on whether he can overdose on advil because his neck is killing him, Grantaire has the text of page 358 (_The Revolution of 1832 was often overlooked for the history of France for many years following it..._) mirrored on his cheek from using it as a pillow, and Cosette has 30 missed calls from her panicked father.

Enjolras can't stop thinking about Grantaire's eyes.

But, finally, everything starts to go right. Bahorel finds his shoes inside the oven, Jehan shyly gives Eponine her bra back in exchange for the green ribbon tucked underneath her shirt, Joly gives Combeferre an icepack and a stern warning, and Cosette manages to get a hold of her father before he alerts Javert to her "disappearance".

Enjolras keeps thinking about Grantaire's eyes.

They all disperse for the day to their various finals and exams and one by one collect back at Enjolras and Combeferre's apartment to find the living area, wall to wall, covered in a thick padding of blankets, comforters, and unzipped sleeping bags. The coffee table, pushed up against one wall, is filled with cheap baked goods and greasy chips. Grantaire arrives after everyone else had already collapsed in various positions of relief with a six-pack, two cheap bottles of wine, and his much coveted DVD copy of The Breakfast Club.

They fall upon him in a way he would later swear was not unlike a pack of starved jackals, but then again, as Courfeyrac would point out, he had never actually been near a jackal before and thus didn't have a basis for comparison. In a moment, he is stripped of booze and movie, and the lights are dimmed for the movie to start; half of the room is asleep almost at once.

Grantaire settles back, leaning against the couch with a content sigh, until he notices Enjolras looking at him through the gloom.

"Not that I'm not thrilled to hold the grand orator's attention," he said, and Enjolras flinched a bit, "but what the hell is your problem, Enjolras?"

It seems for a moment that he's not going to answer, but eventually he just says, "Blue or green?"

Grantaire flushes and looks away as he remembers the conversation from the night before. "Both. I'm not sure."

Enjolras nodded and looked back to the movie. An empty ten minutes passed, and by then everyone else was asleep, heads pillowed on arms and each other.

Just as Grantaire was feeling himself drift off as well, eyes sliding shut, Enjolras murmured two words that ran through his body like lightning.

"Suits you," he said, and Grantaire feels like he'll never need sleep again.

* * *

**The irony of this is that I stayed up the night before a test to do it. I was chatting with my friend about her similar situation, and I randomly said, "If your English grade is fucked and you know it clap your hands," prompting this catastrophe.**

**Review, please?**


	2. Black, or: The Ballad of Jean Prouvaire

It is not an easy thing, to be Jean Prouvaire.

That's because being Jean Prouvaire involves the careful balancing of several contradicting characteristics. To be Jean Prouvaire you needed to be kind, loving, a bit light-headed, but also judgemental, grudge-holding, and pack a killer right hook. And all while wearing at least two items of floral-print clothing.

And although Courfeyrac is known to rock a good daisy print when the mood suits him, he is sadly no Jean Prouvaire.

"I'm not saying that your point is invalid and very misogynist, but your point is invalid and very misogynist."

Enjolras cut his eyes across the back room of the Café Musain at Grantaire, leaning back in his chair to rest his head on the wall behind him. His eyes are closed so he doesn't see the scathing look sent his way, but the quirk of his lips betrays that he is very aware of the vein popping from Enjolras's forehead.

"There is nothing misogynist about immigration laws," Enjolras says, tone tense.

Grantaire cracks open an eye and gives an engaging smile. The roar of an approaching arguement began to sound through the immediate vincinity, and most of the more casual vistors to the only decent on campus cafe decided to move en masse to another area to avoid the upcoming row.

At about this time, a Jean Prouvaire would have stepped in and made them stop before anything other than pride got hurt because a Jean Prouvaire Sees Everything. But, sadly, Courfeyrac is no Jean Prouvaire. Instead he is a Courfeyrac, aka: currently tongue-to-tonsils with the new waitress behind the bar. So he misses the greater beginning of the debate, the rousing middle portion during which the word "douchecanoe" is used wholesale, and the end of the entire show, when Grantaire is covered in wine, Enjolras looks ready to pass out (his shirt is also open; but Courfeyrac Does Not Want to Know). Courf barely manages to pop up from behind the bar with lipstick smeared across the lower half of his face in time to watch Grantaire storm out. Enjolras stands in the middle of the room, clenching his fists and one eye twitching.

A Jean Prouvaire would know the exact way to defuse the wound-up undergrad revolutionary.

But it is worth stating three times that Courfeyrac is not Jean Prouvaire. Not even close.

"What the hell did I miss?"

* * *

**Courf**: we need j back

**Courf**: like pronto

**Courf**: express order

**Courf**: endale

**Courf**: toro toro

**Bahorel**: the fuck courf what the hell are you saying

**Courf**: im sayin that i failed my e/r babysittin duty

**Bahorel**: dammit courf you had one job

**Courf**: pretty please find j 4 me

**Bahorel**: i dont know where he is

**Courf**: come ooooooooon

**Bahorel**: look when jehan doesnt want to be found, he gets the hell out of dodge

**Courf**: the fuck b wth r u sayin

**Bahorel**: what im saying is

**Bahorel**: pay close attention

**Bahorel**: this be some rocket science shit right here

**Bahorel**: im saying

**Bahorel**: do your goddamn job, courf

**Bahorel**: and also, start texting like a grown up

**Courf**: :P

* * *

Jehan liked love. He reveled in it. The idea that two people, unrelated by anything, could look at each other and suddenly be not a lone figure in a crowd, but part of a whole bigger than themself, is fascinating to him. So it particularly pains him to sit at meetings of his friends and watch as Grantaire and Enjolras slowly tear each other apart, because let's face it: there is massive sexual tension there. But Jehan is not a complainer or a meddler, he simply steps in when necessary to stop them from coming to blows in public with a well-timed interruption or a level-headed comment. He thinks that Enjolras is onto him. But even Jehan Prouvaire, poet extraordinaire, has his limits. His limit just happened to be reached in a less opprotune time than he would have liked.

"So are you going to bone Grantaire or what?" he asks without preamble.

Enjolras, for his credit, does not immediately spit out his coffee. He just swallows it like it's suddenly gone sour and gives Jehan, seated on his couch in a sweater that is against all sorts of laws against fashion and common sense, a Look.

"Because he would totally go for it," Jehan adds, twirling one long lock of yellow hair around his finger. "You know."

Enjolras shuts his eyes and counts backwards from ten. When he reaches zero he gives Jehan as calm a look as he can muster this early in the morning when presented with the idea of fucking Grantaire of all people. "No," he simply says, and then leaves the room like a banished king. Jehan pouts after him.

"Ready to go?" Combeferre asks, finally emerging from his room, twirling his key ring on one finger. On Mondays they both carpooled across the city to the two office buildings they interned at, which happened to be situated right next to each other.

In the car, the normally silent Jehan perks up a bit, surprising Combeferre somewhat. "Have R and Enjolras always..." he makes a vague motion with his hands.

"Oh yes," Combeferre agrees readily, "_Always._"

Jehan makes an exasperated noise in the back of his throat and looks out the window stormily before speaking again. "I just don't get it. Why would they be so thick-headed when love is staring them straight in the face?"

Combeferre shrugs. "Maybe they don't need it," he offers. "They do kind of, you know, hate each other with passion unspeakable."

Jehan slid his eyes across the car to rest on Combeferre intelligently. "Joly said that last week."

Combeferre smiles because a Jean Prouvaire Sees Everything and Forgets Nothing and assents, "He wasn't wrong."

Jehan sighs again and aims his pale blue eyes back out the window at the scenery passing by. "It's like our entire group of friends is just going to let this go. People can't live without love, 'Ferre, and it kills me to see R and Enjorlas like this all the time."

With an intake of breath, Combeferre enters what Jehan, Bossuet, Bahorel and Grantaire all secretly call his 'Smarter Than Thou Persona' which involves a lot of gentle tones, firm assertions and, if the situation allows, shoulder pats as he rips your ideas apart, places his in their place, and then sends you on your merry brainwashed and enlightened way. "People like Grantaire and Enjolras, they get along fine without romantic attatchments, and it's not really our place to tell them how to live their lives."

Jehan straightens his mouth into a line. "So, you're saying that people can do without love?"

"Yes," Combeferre nods.

"So, our friends would all be fine without it?"

"Probably," Combeferre admits. "Look, I know that I sound a bit cynical, but life isn't a Disney movie. Get it?"

The silence from Jehan's half of the car heralds a new age of Disney-ness that no one could escape.

* * *

First he skipped their weekly meet-up at the Musain. Bahorel ended up in another fight, Grantaire passed out drunk, and Combeferre was hit with the dreaded feeling that he had fucked something up royally.

But they can't avoid him on campus, as he is in literally every artistic club to ever put on a demonstration in the quad and not to mention enrolled in all classes covering forms of the English language, and that is when Marius starts Freaking Out because he swears he saw a movie like this once as a kid.

"He's been taken over by a demon," he whispers to Courfeyrac, who also saw that movie and didn't think it was good enough to count as a theory as to why Jehan was suddenly wearing dull, muted colors and not dipping the end of his long blond braid into bright cups of paint. Tensions rise in the group without Jehan there to curb them with his magical Jean Prouvaire powers, until eventually they all resort to assigning shifts to each other. There was the "Don't let Grantaire and Enjolras kill each other" shift, the "Make Sure Bahorel Doesn't Break His Nose Again" shift, and the "Dear God Don't Let Marius Wander Into The Porn Store On Accident Again" shift.

It's not the shifts that Courfeyrac hates. It's not the scathing looks he got one night when he had to escort a still boob-shocked Marius fresh from The Treasure Boxx to his table at the Musain, or the increasingly exasperated text battles with Joly over who had E/R duty for that afternoon. It's the simple fact that Courfeyrac hates losing people.

So, of course he's getting Jehan back. Because he loves the little pissy poet as much as he loves the rest of his friends and he doesn't want to lose him.

* * *

"Yo! Prouvaire!"

Jehan stops walking and tries to settle his face into casual indifference. Courfeyrac pants as he catches up to him, chest heaving. His eyes moved up and down the shorter man and he simple states, "what the fuck," because there is no better response to what he was seeing.

Jehan was wearing a pair of black skinny jeans, a gray button down, and a black jacket. There was not one floral print to be seen, which Courfeyrac wouldn't have thought possible until he saw it with his own eyes. The poet smirks up at Courf's confused expression and pertly asks, "Yes?"

"What the fuck," Courfeyrac repeats, before coming to his sense and adding, as an afterthought, "We need you back, Jehan."

The poet shrugs. "I'm not so sure. I was just shoving useless romance down your guys's throats, right? At least that's what 'Ferre said."

"Fuck 'Ferre?" Courfeyrac offers, arranging his arms in a tree-shape of emotion. "Jehan, you're the bright, campy glue that holds us all together. And although we might not love each other when sober or not under threat of death, we sure as hell love you. So please, _please,_ put your big boy floral-print jeans on and come back before R and Enjolras kill each other with words."

Jehan tilts his head, considering, and Courf drops his arms. "The group is everyone, Prouvaire," he says flatly, "and when you're not there, it's not the same. It's like, you're part of a bigger whole and when you're gone, something important is missing. Come back?"

He doesn't respond right away.

* * *

**Bahorel: **how in holy hell did you convince jehan to come back?

**Courf**: magic :p

**Courf**: imma wizard b

**Courf**: off 2 do wizard things my secret wizard school

**Bahorel**: wow i suddenly remembered why i dont like texting you

**Courf**: ur just jealous

**Courf**: i found j w/o ur help

**Courf**: nyeh nyeh i win

**Courf**: imma txt u a pic of my ass doin a winners dance

**Bahorel**: oh my fucking god

**Bahorel: **i DID NOT need to know about that tattoo there

**Courf: **magic tat

**Courf: **on my magic ass

**Courf: **cuz imma wizard and i win

**Bahorel: **im done

* * *

Jean Prouvaire is many things. He is a poet, a dreamer, and a romantic. He is a crusader, a vigilante, and an expert at matching floral prints to other bright patterns. He wears black when he doen't want to think about how much brighter his life could be.

But above all, he loves being in love with his friends.


	3. Yellow, or: The Fourth Revolution

**Baha, long chapter :P**

**Also a Cosette/Marius chapter, technically taking place some time before chapter 1.**

* * *

Marius seemed to be struck by lightning when he let himself into the Musain for their weekly meeting, forty five minutes later than normal, to plan and discuss their upcoming battles with politics and social inequalities. He plopped down in a chair with a faraway look in his eye and a slack jaw just open enough to be noticeably annoying.

"You should shut that," Combeferre said, nodding at his friend, "birds could nest."

"Small birds," Grantaire said to no one in particular. Marius closed his jaw with a creak, eyes still far away. He had forgotten his umbrella and his dark hair was thick with rainwater.

"What's the matter with you?" Enjolras asked, pausing his arrangement of his notes for that meeting, a whole side of the large table taken up by flyers and printouts of news articles that he thought they would find interesting.

For a response, Marius gave a smile that they had never seen on him before.

"Oh my god," Grantaire said into the shocked silence while Courfeyrac made the sign of the cross, "we're so fucked. He's _smitten._" Marius made an unholy noise, leaning his chin onto one hand.

"Either get him out of here before Jehan shows up or wipe the smile from his face," Enjolras ordered, "we don't want a repeat performance of Bahorel and the barista." They all shuddered at the memory.

Courfeyrac volunteered to go with Marius to defuse him, and Combeferre lost a quick and hurried game of Roshambo with Grantaire while Enjolras's back was turned to wave to a dark-haired girl from his Government class, who tended to hover nearby during meetings unless invited to sit with them.

"You don't even want to be here," Combeferre hissed to Grantaire as he gathered his things.

"You don't even know how to play rock-paper-scissors," the already buzzed young man snapped in response, leaning his chair back luxuriously. Combeferre pushed his glasses up his nose and lead Marius and Courfeyrac to his car with a barely repressed sigh, brushing past Bahorel and Feuilly as they entered the café. Approaching the now diminished table, waiting for only Joly, Bossuet, and Jehan, Bahorel jerked one thumb over his shoulder, to the door swinging closed behind the banished trio.

"What was that about?" he asked, dragging out his chair and giving Eponine, now sitting with them, a friendly nod.

"Barista," was all Enjolras said, and the color drained from Bahorel's face.

"A quick prayer," Grantaire ground out sarcastically as Feuilly started to tell Eponine what exactly the fuck was going on, "Dear Lord, spare us from the powers of Jean Prouvaire to take no bullshit in the face of budding romance. Let him remain oblivious for as long as possible. Praise Jesus, amen."

"Amen," Bahorel replied. "I need a fucking drink."

* * *

At Combeferre and Enjolras's empty apartment, Marius was forced to sit on a kitchen chair and face an inquisition of two undergraduates with crossed and judgmental arms.

"Listen to me, Pontmercy. I am your voice of reason."

Marius blinked in confusion before pointing at Combeferre. "No, he's my voice of reason."

Courfeyrac feigned injury. "That cuts me deep, roomie... roomie! That's it! I'm your roommate; therefore I have a voting share in your love life." He looked down at the sitting Marius smugly.

"Then shouldn't Jehan be here?" Marius asked in confusion as Combeferre repressed a smirk, "He's my roommate too."

"No!" the two standing young men said at once, shuddering together. "Whatever you do, don't tell Jehan."

"But—"

"Just, don't," Combeferre pressed while Courfeyrac muttered something about baristas.

"Oh, for the love of Christ, just _talk _to her," Courfeyrac groaned. "You're killing me here."

"And I'm pretty sure that Jehan would kill you too, if he learned that you were hiding away from a girl you want to date," Combeferre added as Courfeyrac writhed around to show his pain at having an introvert as a roommate.

"I'm not... hiding out," Marius said delicately, red rising in his face, "just... biding my time?"

"Face it," Courfeyrac told him plainly, "on the scale of 'hiding out' you're entrenched deep in the jungles of 'Nam right now. There is no deeper hiding out."

"Hidden in the Himalayas," Combeferre challenged with a grin.

"At the bottom of the Atlantic," Courfeyrac shot back.

"Encamped in the middle of the Sahara."

As their voices got higher and higher ("Being Dr. Livingston!" "In Mordor!"), Marius snuck out headed down to the bookstore around the corner from the Musain. If he was lucky, she would be there.

She wasn't.

Earlier that day, she had walked out shortly after he had.

* * *

**Courf**: fuck it m y did u sneak out

**Courf**: m

**Courf**: marius

**Courf**: i assume that since ur not answrin that ur gettin laid

**Courf**: congrats

**Joly**: Um, wrong number Courf. Sorry.

**Courf**: fuckin b changed my contacts AGAIN

**Courf**: gonna have WORDS w/ him l8r

**Joly**: What about Marius getting laid?

**Courf**: boy is twitterpatted so hard

**Courf: **str8 outta a disney movie i s2g

**Joly: **Does Jehan know?

**Courf: **ok look doc

**Courf:** if j gets wind of this

**Courf: **then everybody

**Courf: **not just m

**Courf: **is fucked so hard we gonna b walkin funny 4 a week

**Courf: **u get me?

**Joly: **Dear God Bahorel wasn't kidding about your texting

**Courf**: :p

* * *

There was a small bookshop a few blocks away from the Musain that Marius always walked by on his way to meet his friends. He never went inside, let alone looked through the windows, since he was usually late to the meetings and going along at a clipped speed to try and make it there before Courfeyrac, who would usually place an order for him of something obscenely fruity and not at all coffee-related.

But today he had gotten a text from Enjolras halfway through his walk that the meeting would be postponed for forty-five minutes because he, Combeferre, Courfeyrac and Bahorel were all trapped in an extended lecture that they couldn't leave. So that day, as he strolled leisurely past the bookshop, he figured that a look around inside was a perfect way to waste half an hour.

He didn't know how right he was.

He had wandered into the poetry section for no reason, expecting to see Jehan camped out in the waist-high aisles, when a bell went off as the door swung open. By instinct rather than interest, he looked up and felt the floor drop away beneath him.

A young woman his age stood in the doorway, shaking off her wet umbrella—rain had begun to fall while Marius had pointlessly perused the books—and propped it against the door. She swept a knit hat off of her head and let soft curls of golden yellow hair cascade down almost to her waist. With eyes that shone out like stars, she looked and Marius and he experienced a small heart attack.

He quickly forced himself to walk on stiff legs to another part of the bookshop, waited long enough for her to be gone from the doorway, and then rushed out into the downpour to make his way into the Musain. Not five minutes later he was being bustled out again.

"What happened between Bahorel and the barista?" he asked in a faraway voice as Combeferre drove him and Courfeyrac to his apartment.

"Don't ask," they both said, and Marius didn't even make a sound in response, too busy dreaming of a girl with sunlight for hair to notice.

* * *

After he escaped from Combeferre and Courfeyrac (ignoring the latter's attempts to call, text, and message him), he stood in the poetry section of the bookshop for two hours, and she didn't show up again.

* * *

The next day he approached the bookshop just in time to watch her leaving, hair tucked away but her umbrella easily recognizable. She walked away with her head low and her feet heavy, and he was gripped with the insatiable urge to run to her, pull her close, and make everything okay.

Luckily for him and his arrest record, he repressed the urge and trudged back the way he came.

* * *

"You have got to be fucking with me," Bahorel told him in their math class the next day. "Just ask her out next time you see her!"

"I can't; I don't know a thing about her!"

"Then why do you want to ask her out?" Bahorel asked bluntly. Marius pointedly stood up and moved seats.

* * *

He couldn't explain it; couldn't articulate how the softness of her eyes (which he saw almost daily now; she went to the bookstore the same time every day, and he was normally there already in wait for her, leaving soon after her) were like nothing he had ever seen before; how her finely sculpted hands handled the books she never seemed to buy were something from a dream. He never found the words to describe the impossible yellowness of her hair, a shade that permeated into his dreams.

He dreamt of her hair and woke up with his mouth empty for a name. He would get ready, go to classes, and then arrive at the bookstore just in time to watch her enter and do her daily ritual—tap water off of umbrella, uncap hair, look around the room (look over where Marius was pretending to inspect a book of Yeats) and then head to the biography section, on the opposite side of the shop. And then, after around an hour, he would force himself to leave, cheeks burning into the onslaught of rain that did not cease.

He never saw how she watched him go with disappointment and regret.

* * *

Marius was never good at talking to new people. He tried to talk to her three times, making a strangled noise in her direction as they stood in the same aisle at the bookshop, and then quickly made his exit into the rainstorm as she watched after him with a dying hopeful expression the first time. The second time it was as she brushed past him to leave; he reached out one hand halfway to her, opened his mouth, and then closed it with an audible clack that had her looking over her shoulder at him as he stared holes into the spines of the books in front of him. The third time all he did was look at her and think across everything he would tell her. The sounds pushed at his teeth, and all he could do was mouth them silently. _My name is Marius Pontmercy and I think I'm more in love with you than is humanly possible._

She looked up, he looked away.

The only way he met people was when they met him first. That was how he met Courfeyrac on the first day of freshman year, and by proxy the rest of his tight knit group of friends. By their second year they were all more or less living with each other, either in the literal sense of Courfeyrac, Jehan, and Marius, and Combeferre and Enjolras, or in the figurative sense of everyone having a spare key to everyone else's apartments or dorms which they used readily.

Like Marius did three weeks after his infatuation began.

* * *

Enjolras paused in the doorway, his hand still on the knob. "What are you doing here?" he asked Marius, who was glumly sitting on his couch, making sad faces at his open history textbook.

"Jehan stayed at home today and Courf kicked me out," he explained. "And no one will tell me why, or what it has to do with baristas and Bahorel."

"Just the one barista," Enjolras said without further explanation. "Trust me, its better this way. Jehan would read you like a book."

"But I could really use his advice!"

"No you couldn't," Enjolras insisted. "Trust me."

Marius pouted at his book before beginning to speak up. "I'm also not that good with romantic advice," Enjolras said awkwardly, cutting him off. "So, um… don't."

"Are you good at listening at least?" Marius snapped, and Enjolras blinked in surprise at the iron in his voice. He nodded and dropped into his favorite armchair, ignoring the bag of homework he had been dragging inside.

It's a long process, and Marius thinks that Enjolras fell asleep for some of it, but it comes out. As close as Marius can get to the feeling of wholeness he gets by being near her, the urge to know everything about her, to hear her talk and listen to her laugh. But then there were the dark minutes while he explained his fear of reaching out to her, because although he was a romantic he was not a fool, no matter how often the two seemed to go hand in hand. He knew that his fragile painting of her could be shattered in an instant if he got to know her—what if she was nothing like what he thought? What if she rebuffed him, hated him? How comforting would his memories be if she proved to be nothing but a lie? It terrified him and he was not ashamed to admit it. For nearly forty-five minutes he talked without end, finally ending with a sore throat and tired eyes.

Enjolras was not surprised at the strength of the confessions, but at the fact that there were any confessions being made at all. There are some things the at the group did not talk about, ranging on subjects from Grantaire's drinking and the scars on his arms, Bahorel's various tattoos, to Feuilly's current financial situation, but most of all they did not talk about Marius's past. This is as close as Enjolras had ever gotten into Marius's mind. Marius never offered anything up himself, only interjecting the odd opinion on social matters at meetings, never any personal information.

When Marius was done he looked at Enjolras for a long time, who looked like he was deep in thought. Finally, the blond spoke.

"What do you want to do?" he asked.

Marius looked at his hands. "I'm not sure."

"You should think about that," Enjolras said plainly, "before you think about anything else. What do you want to do?"

Marius buried his face in his hands and Enjolras hesitated a bit, uncomfortable with the amount of emotion happening on his couch. "I want to get this barrier out of my head and talk to her," he finally said.

"Okay then," Enjolras nodded. He did not continue on to order Marius to do just that, right then, which Marius was grateful for.

* * *

To date, none of his friends knew anything about his family, other than that He Can't Talk About It. It's not that he doesn't (he will occasionally drop tidbits like "My great-aunt once told me," or "When I was living with my grandfather..."), it's that he actually, physically cannot talk about it. The subject freezes him in place, jaw locked shut and eyes getting misty with a combination of immense sorrow and insurmountable anger. He had, on one occasion where Courfeyrac would not drop the subject, driven the nails of his hands into his palms hard enough to draw a thin line of blood, all while keeping silent to Courf's questions. He then dropped the subject suddenly. Marius's friends were curious, to say the least, but they respect the fact that he just couldn't do it. He couldn't open up the gates that one extra inch, because along with the sad, horrible truth, there was a massive flood of other emotions that will come with it. The guilt, the sorrow, the rage and the fear would come rushing out of him and he wasn't totally sure that he could make it through that with an audience of his friends watching. It's as if in some dark back corner of his mind he knew that he would drown in the flood.

But she. The way she looked at him as he watched from the corner of his eye, he thought that perhaps she could stem the flood, be his lifeboat on the thrashing seas. He had the hope cradled in the recesses of his chest that if he whispered his secrets into the skin of her neck or her shoulder that she could keep them safe from the light, trapped between his lips and her pulse as he kissed the line of her jaw. She was the safest place that Marius had ever seen, and it terrified him.

It terrified him into a silence that was slowly constricting around him, suffocating him.

And it finally reached the point, four weeks-and three failed attempts to speak-into his one-sided love affair, where talking at Enjolras, stuttering at Courfeyrac, and avoiding Jehan for unknown reasons could not help at all. There was only one thing he could do, and only one person he knew wouldn't think worse of him, or, God forbid, try and offer useless advice when he did it.

* * *

**R**: hey courf your bfriend is crying on my couch

**R**: come collect him or i will kick his skinny ass to the curb

**Courf**: no u wont

**Courf**: ur probly the only 1 of all us who wont do that

**R**: whatever

**R**: come get him anyway

**Courf**: omw

* * *

Grantaire's apartment was a cheap single in an area of town that only the drug addicted or the dying chose to live in, with houses and apartments meant for bigger and better people but because of the credit crunch had to make do with only part-time employed and all-time drunk college students. When Courfeyrac knocked on the familiar ground-level apartment, Grantaire opened the door with a bottle of beer in one hand in a facial expression bordering on hysteria.

"Why is he even _here_?" he demanded of Courfeyrac as he led the way to the living space of his small, dingy apartment. "I thought he was _your_ lost puppy."

"Because you're the only one who wouldn't kick him out or give him advice," Courfeyrac stated. "And that's not what he needs right now." He winced when he saw the state Marius was in, curled up on Grantaire's second hand couch with his face pressed into one corner, shoulders shaking. He had tried, he had really truly tried to help, but his advice towards Marius in the past weeks had never gone beyond telling him to Just Do It.

"I don't even know how to deal with this," Grantaire said, although his voice was soft. He could jump back from the gates of hell when it was him, sobbing hysterically into the scruffy pillows on his couch, but when faced with someone else all he wanted was a drink.

"Sorry," Marius gasped, taking in huge shuddering breaths and pinching the bridge of his nose. He sat up slowly. "Sorry," he said again, and Grantaire sighed, dropping to sit next to him on the couch.

"No problem," he said briefly, and then stood up again. "I'm making coffee," he said to no one in particular, and then went into his kitchen to make loud coffee noises.

"You okay?" Courfeyrac asked softly.

Marius tried to nod, but couldn't, making a strangled noise.

"Panic attack?" Courfeyrac asked delicately. "Or are they anxiety attacks? I forget which is which."

"Me too," Marius said quietly, rubbing at his face. "I can't take this stress anymore, Courf. I just—" he made a noise and stuck his face into the corner again.

Courfeyrac looked at him for a long minute before going to the kitchen to find Grantaire with a steaming mug of coffee in his hands that by all the laws of physics and nature he should not have had that quickly. Touching a finger to his lips, Courfeyrac took the mug and dropped something from his pocket it in before leaving to present it to Marius with the stern order to drink up.

Marius was asleep before he had even finished his cup. With a relieved sigh Courfeyrac collapsed into a battered folding chair in Grantaire's kitchen, where the older man was sitting, nursing a new beer and a battered sketchbook that he set aside when Courfeyrac entered the room. He craned his head to look over the faux wood bar partition and made a noise that Courfeyrac didn't care to translate.

"What did you give him?" Grantaire sounded a strange mix of impressed and horrified. "You know what? I don't want to know. Guilt by association."

"At least he's stopped crying now?" Courfeyrac offered.

Grantaire muttered something like "small blessings" into the mouth of his bottle. Then he spoke up. "What are you going to tell him when he wakes up?"

Courfeyrac shrugged and made a helpless sound.

"Because you know he can't go to anyone else," Grantaire pressed. "Jehan goes without saying. Joly, Bossuet, 'Chetta? They're all as normal as fuck romantically speaking—except for the polyromantic thing. Bahorel doesn't get any emotions that don't come with a bloody nose, Combeferre has his strange quasi-asexual thing that I think is just laziness, Feuilly doesn't know him all that well, and Enjolras…" he chuckled after swallowing heavily. "We don't need to talk about all the reasons why Enjolras is a bad choice for Marius, here."

"You could talk to him," Courfeyrac pointed out, "You're both…"

Grantaire's eyes dared him to continue the sentence, while his mouth begged for him to stop. Courfeyrac sighed. "Okay. I'll talk to him."

"Good." Grantaire stood and drained his beer, slinging a camera with a strap over his shoulder. "Now, I have work to do. Please don't be here when I get back." It's not an unkind suggestion.

"Love you too, R!" Courfeyrac called out after him, and smiled as Grantaire let out a loud bark of a laugh in the hallway before his steps retreated.

* * *

Courfeyrac was sitting on the small balcony to one side of the living room when Marius woke up slowly, blinking and confused as to where he was and why it smelled like whiskey. Courfeyrac didn't call out to him, only continued to watch the sunset over the tall industrial buildings. The balcony wasn't so much a balcony as a bricked-in narrow patio that only had enough room for two plastic lawn chairs and a full ashtray.

Marius came over to sit next to him in silence. Courfeyrac, for once, didn't press him to speak. Finally, after a few long minutes, Marius spoke.

"How do you do it?" he asked quietly, "Let people in like you do."

Courfeyrac shrugged before leaning in to talk in a low tone. "A word of advice, Pontmercy: if you let people in like I do, fast and furious and brief, then... well, it's like leaving the door open. They just walk right on out afterwards." Marius pictured a door swinging closed, with Her on the other side. All the light is gone, snuffed out in an instant, and his heart let out a weak thump. He groaned and leaned his forehead into his knees, feeling Courfeyrac rest his hand on his back for a moment before speaking up again.

"So get your big boy pants on, Marius," he slapped his back harshly, and Marius glared up at him from his hunched position, "and talk to that girl, before she walks out."

Marius sighed before finding a small smile. "Okay, Courf. Tomorrow, I'll do it. I'll really do it." It is not just a promise to Courfeyrac, but to himself. If he went one more day without talking to her, he didn't know what he would do with himself.

"Good," Courfeyrac replied, standing and stretching before swinging his legs over the brick barrier and landing on the narrow road that curved towards the back parking lot of the building. As he walked away, he called out loudly over his shoulder, "God above knows how badly you need to get laid!"

"You're a dick sometimes, you know that?" Marius called out in reply. Courfeyrac laughed along the wind and raised a hand over his shoulder in recognition. Marius watched him walk away.

_Tomorrow, I'll do it. __Fourth time is the charm, right?_

_Right._

* * *

Marius was at the book shop before she was, hovering around the poetry section, occasionally taking a book off the shelf and then putting it back in a different spot without looking at it or what it contained. Finally, she entered with a signaling ring of the bell, looking around quickly, hair a bit askew and breath coming in and out hurriedly. Marius looked away as her eyes passed over him, glancing up only as she went to her usual spot by the biographies with something like a relieved expression.

_Put on your big boy pants,_ Marius told himself, imitating Courfeyrac's slight Irish accent. _Walk over, say "hey" and don't look like an idiot._

He turned away from the poetry books quickly, managed to catch himself as he stumbled, and then walked even faster towards her. She was walking towards him too, with her hands clenched a bit. She was focusing on her feet, mouthing something to herself that Marius couldn't detect. As they got closer and closer he thought he heard her whisper, "talk to him talk to him talk to him don't look like a freak" and then he realized that only reason he could hear her was because he was about to run into her.

As romantic as it might have seemed in the movies, running smack into someone at fast walking speed actually hurt a _lot_.

"Ouch," Marius said, clutching at his nose. "_Ouch_."

"Ow," She rubbed at her head, fingers disturbing yellow locks. "Um." She looked at him. He looked at her, sprawled on the ground across from her.

"Here—"

"Let me—"

"Help—"

They both offered hands to stand up and then stood up without help, and ended up standing holding hands. He released her just as quickly as she released him. They stood apart, looking anywhere but at each other, faces red.

He dared to look at her. She was looking at him at the same moment from beneath a fringe of yellow hair. He opened his mouth to speak just as she opened hers.

Both waited for the other to speak.

He didn't know when his face broke into a smile; but he watched as she did the same, again beginning to speak at the same time as he did, and cutting herself off in tandem with him. He began to laugh, and her musical giggle rose with it until he was hunched over, in stitches, because wouldn't luck have it that his angel had been waiting for him as well?

"I'm Marius Pontmercy," he eventually greeted her, after they had been glared onto the sidewalk outside the bookshop from the racket they were making. All awkwardness was gone, leaving behind only a mutual, glowing warmth.

"I'm Cosette," she said, her voice bringing the beating of his heart higher. "It's nice to meet you." She held out her hand.

He took it. "It's nice to meet you too." Truer words, he thought, he had never spoken.

The clouds parted and the sun came down around them in a bright shower, the constant rain gone at last. It was the golden moment to end all golden moments, or at least it seemed to be so, until it was made pale in comparison when Cosette spoke up again:

"Would you like to go out sometime and grab a coffee?"

He couldn't say yes fast enough.

* * *

**Courf**: yo so r u good or r u sad

**Marius**: I'm great :)

**Courf**: slow claps 4 u

**Courf**: tears runnin down my face

**Courf:** i b praisin up the lord something fierce

**Marius**: Shut up?

**Courf**: haha yeah sure whatevs

**Courf**: congrats bro

**Marius**: Thanks :)

* * *

The coffee was good.

The shy, almost frightened kiss that Marius brushed onto her cheek afterwards was great.

The kiss she pulled him into afterwards, fingers tangled in the front of his shirt, his hands tangled in her hair, was nothing short of _utterly amazing._

* * *

**Jehan**: What is this I hear about you getting a lady friend ^w^

**Marius**: Um

**Jehan**: I am going to call you and you are going to answer. We romantics have matters of the 3 to discuss.

**Jehan**: Ooh! I'll write your new beau a sonnet to her beauty! She'll love it, and you can give it to her as a present. I've got such good ideas, huh? :D

**Jehan**: Haha, I'm getting ahead of myself. Calling you now :3

**Jehan**: Did you send me to voicemail :l

**Marius**: No

**Jehan**: You totally sent me to voicemail

**Jehan**: You little bitch

**Marius**: Jehan please

**Jehan**: You are going to answer the phone the next time I call. I'm writing a sonnet to your new girlfriend and you can't stop me.

**Marius**: Oh my god

* * *

**Haha, _anxiety attacks._ Seriously though, those suck balls.**

**Review, please? Next time: Lavender, or: Bahorel Bangs a Barista**


	4. Lavender, or: Bahorel Bangs a Barista

**And, we're back, sorry for the long wait, but I hope that the shenanigans of one of my personal favorite Amis will suffice as a hiatus-breaker.**

**This chapter takes place before Yellow, and before Cyan.**

**For Bahorel's ringtone, look to Cee-Lo, "Fuck You"**

* * *

Feuilly sighed as he kicked the door to the apartment shut with one backwards-swinging heel, tossing his key ring into the bowl placed on a table beside the door. When, after a minute, he didn't shout at the top of his lungs, "HONEY, I'M HOME!" Bahorel suspiciously poked his head around a corner, eyes narrowed.

"What's the matter with you?" he asked, not unkindly.

The younger man shrugged, flinging himself onto the couch in a practiced way, tangling his legs up comfortably.

Bahorel hesitated for a moment. Feuilly was never one to complain, but always quick to jump to cease anything that could be misconstrued as pity—including but not limited to the emotions of empathy, kindness, and friendship. So he tread his way into the subject carefully, giving an easy shrug and settling himself onto the end of the couch, rudely shoving Feuilly's legs aside to do so.

"How was work?" Bahorel asked.

Feuilly wouldn't look at him, eyes on the television as he cycled through the channels. "Fine." He had not used that tone of voice since he had been asked, two years ago, "How did your scholarship go through?"

"'Kay." Bahorel let it drop. For now.

Bahorel had known plenty of people in high school who got their highs from drugs and blades, hard rock music and raves of wild abandon. He had a different way to release himself.

Knuckles meeting skin. Leaving behind a mark. Muscles stretching in his arm, his bones singing with every hard reply his opponent gave him. Hit. Hit. Teeth, loosened in the mouth, blood, warm on the tongue. Exquisite. Bahorel was physicality given human form. His fingers, joints swollen and coated in a light layer of adhesive from his binding tape, traveled over everything, callouses seeking out answers in things he didn't understand. And he would be the first to admit that he didn't know everything. But God, _did he want to._ Questions seeped from his fingers and his sideways smile, they were soaked into his faded rock band shirts and his torn jeans.

And questions begged answers.

* * *

**Bahorel: **somthings up with you and i am not giving up

**Feuilly: **its 3 in the morning

**Feuilly: **you are literally separated from me by one wall

**Feuilly: **when it comes to texting sometimes you're worse than Courf

**Bahorel: **you take that back

**Feuilly: **let me fucking sleep and I just might

**Bahorel: **point taken honey bear

**Feuilly: **If I was your honey anything I'd have left you years ago

**Feuilly: **text me one more motherfucking time and I'm shrinking all your vintage band shirts

* * *

Bahorel knew that Feuilly worked at the school as a janitor every other day, and in the kitchens cleaning dishes the days in between. He walked home on nights when he worked late, hopping a bus occasionally, but most days when he got off he would find Bahorel listening to music in his truck or catching a nap in the flatbed, ready at a word to snap up and drive his roommate home.

But one day, Bahorel decided he had enough of waiting.

He stood on the sidewalk by the parking lot entrance, able to see the academic buildings on his right, the cafeteria and dorms straight ahead, past the quad, where kiosks of food were set up for the hurrying students without the time to stop into the cafeteria, and on his left, past a grassy stretch striped with walkways and walls, the art buildings and the student apartments.

As Bahorel stood, watching, occasionally pacing, giving a good roguish look from beneath his eyebrows to any passing girls, he saw Feuilly emerge from the cafeteria, distinguishable in his faded overcoat and ratty Dodgers cap. His hands were shoved into his pockets and he walked as if in a gale, head bent and feet resolute. Bahorel almost called out, when Feuilly passed by a stand with a coffee machine and several assorted breakfast-based baked goods. The man who stood at the kiosk wore a green apron and as Feuilly walked by, he lifted his chin and shouted.

"Hey, charity case! Walk on the other side of the road; you're scaring off the customers. Go on, fuck off, back to whatever shelter hopeless wetbacks go to."

Feuilly ducked his head and walked faster.

"Hey, did you fucking hear me? I said you're not wanted here; this is a goddamn university, for serious students going somewhere, not back down into the gutter where your mom spread her legs for a buck. Come one!" The barista rummaged around underneath the kiosk and pulled out a wrapped package, which he threw at Feuilly, passing by without sparing a glance. It missed, bursting open on the ground; a mix of garbage and coffee grounds. Feuilly didn't seem to notice.

Bahorel did.

"_Hey!_" Feuilly's head snapped up at the sound of Bahorel's voice, cutting through the calm, late afternoon air. "_What the fuck did you just say?!"_ Bahorel shrugged out of his jacket as he approached the kiosk and the unperturbed barista, who watched his approach with a lazy look on his face.

"_I asked you a question, motherfucker. What the fuck did you just say?!"_

"Bahorel, stop, its okay-!"

Bahorel didn't hear him or feel how his arm was tugged, attempting to stop him. He would not be stopped. He was Bahorel, three time gold glove winner, physicality given form, a powerhouse connected to two hands and a mind that saw only red when his friends were in danger—

The barista drew back his arm.

Bahorel was on the ground.

* * *

"That was the least fun I have ever had hurting someone," Bahorel told Feuilly, who was helping to hold an ice pack to one side of Bahorel's face.

"Hate to break it to you, but you didn't really hurt him." Feuilly was furious, Bahorel could tell, but he decided that that mattered less than the black eye he was now sporting, and the serious road rash up and down his bare arms. His jacket, God bless it, had been left behind in Feuilly's hectic quest to get Bahorel as far away from the deadly barista as possible.

Feuilly wouldn't look Bahorel in the eye. "You're a fucking idiot."

"I know." His everything was throbbing.

"He beat you up for four goddamn minutes and you didn't even land a punch."

"I know." Was that blood up his nose? Or was his nose up his nose? Frankly it was hard to tell with the amount of swelling going on.

"I have half a mind to call fucking Javert on this."

"But you won't." Bahorel's voice was lightly amused, God damn him. He barely registered that Feuilly slapped at his shoulder.

"But I _can't _because if you get in one more fight, you get kicked out."

"Ehh, details."

"_I will fucking kill you, Bahorel._"

"I'm sorry, okay? I know you hate to have your battles fought for you, but I couldn't control myself. Guy's worse than a douche. Worse than a dick. He's a _dickouche_."

"You're an idiot."

"Yeah," Bahorel sighed in agreement. "How long has that whole mess been going on?"

Feuilly wouldn't look at him for a different reason. "A month," he muttered.

Bahorel let out a long exhalation. "And you didn't tell—"

"I didn't tell because my best friend is an idiot who thinks with his fists and even then gets his ass kicked."

"We're still talking about me, right?"

"I am not intoxicated enough for this." Feuilly stood up and walked into the kitchen, where the fridge could be heard being opened.

"That makes two of us!" Bahorel called out, trying to drop a hint, but Feuilly returned with only one beer in his hand.

"What are you going to do, Bahorel?" Feuilly sighed. "That… _dickouche_ has it out for you now, too. And he won't just be yelling obscenities at you, either, now that he knows you like to fight."

"I am going… to go to bed." Bahorel winced as he pushed himself to his feet and slumped off to his room.

"And then what are you going to do?!" Feuilly called after him.

Bahorel's beaten and still slightly bloody face peeked around the doorway to his room. "I'm gonna make him fucking _cry_."

* * *

A week later, Feuilly had stopped walking through the quad on his way out of work, and hadn't come into contact with the barista. However, Bahorel continued to arrive home with bruises, contusions, and on one memorable occasion, a missing tooth.

"It's a half-molar; no one will even notice it's gone."

"_There is no such thing as a half-molar you lying piece of shit."_

Bahorel skipped the meeting that week, and expected Feuilly, in his common closed way, to keep it to himself. But, he was disappointed, as Feuilly personally extended an invitation to the Amis to come to their apartment after the meeting, stomping in on Bahorel napping, stretched out on the couch, an ice pack covering his strained wrist.

The Amis stopped in the doorway, unsure of how to continue.

Courfeyrac held up a hand for silence and then crept over to the couch. He bent over the back, his upper half hidden from view momentarily. Then he snapped back with a huge smile on his face as Bahorel shouted "I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD COURF I WILL KILL YOU."

"I'm pretty sure that God is celibate, but okay."

Bahorel glared over the back of the couch at that comment, pulling himself up roughly and languidly until he was sitting on the back, arms outstretched. "Okay, let it go," he said, "last chance to take in the show. Laugh it up, boys."

"What happened?" Enjolras asked, eyeing the bruises and abrasions covering Bahorel's face and arms. The stiff way he handled himself hinted at more purple marks hidden beneath his shirt.

"I got in a fight."

"Obviously," Combeferre noted dryly.

"Several fights," Feuilly muttered under his breath.

Bahorel pointed at him. "Was this your plan, to shame me into stopping my righteous crusade against evil?"

"Not drunk enough," Grantaire and Feuilly said at the same time, and walked together into the kitchen.

Combeferre, meanwhile, was studying Bahorel as he slumped back over onto the couch, making an audible gasping noise as he hit the cushions. While Bahorel liked to test things, know things (like how it was possible for a barista to keep beating him), Combeferre liked finding reasons. He liked understanding, not only knowing.

"What's going on?" he asked, in a tone Bahorel and the rest of the Amis knew too well. His 'on the hunt' voice that normally proceeded intense interrogations on why exactly you were unable to attend one of his hellish study sessions the night before.

"I am getting back into the boxing scene. Unfortunately there is an up and rising dickouche that for some unfathomable reason keeps beating me. He is also a jerk to everyone and I want to pull him down a peg by beating him."

"Which hasn't happened yet!" Feuilly added from the kitchen. Bahorel flipped the bird in the general direction of his voice.

"But I'm going to beat him. I've beaten everyone else I've ever gone against, and I'm going to beat him. For the good of the world!"

Feuilly's groan of disgust was perfectly audible throughout the apartment.

"What the ever-loving _fuck _is a 'dickouche'?" Grantaire demanded.

* * *

Two weeks.

Bahorel would wait behind corners to "engage the enemy" and then would be found several minutes later slinking away with the marks of a fist on his jaw and his shoulders. Often his arms were riddled with scrapes and road rash from hitting the asphalt, his jeans newly torn. Once he was missing an entire section of hair near his temple.

"Piece of shit fights dirty," he said to Feuilly as an explanation.

"Stop trying to beat him Bahorel, you're going to get hurt."

"Too late for that." There was blood on his teeth as he smiled.

* * *

Three weeks.

Jehan found Bahorel collapsed on a grassy area outside the arts buildings, his face buried in the fresh greenness, hands tightened. The pressure had built to a raging force that finally began to feel the acute pain that came with each defeat. It wasn't about Feuilly anymore. It was about Bahorel getting a weight of failure off of his back.

As Jehan approached his friend curiously, he picked up on the growling sounds that Bahorel was making into the dirt.

"You really should stop being such a dork," Jehan noted. Bahorel blearily opened one eye to look at the short poet standing over him, but only made it as far as his footwear.

"You're wearing yellow rain boots."

"I'm wearing yellow rain boots," Jehan agreed, sounding far too pleased with himself.

Bahorel closed his eyes and counted down from ten, but only made it to seven before bursting out, "_This is too fucking ridiculous._"

"I've worn these boots before; don't be such a baby about it."

"I'm not just talking about your goddamn goulashes. I'm talking about the goddamn barista and goddamn Feuilly and goddamn _heart palpitations _that I am getting from this whole goddamn experience… and I've never seen you wear those before, don't fucking lie to me."

"So maybe I haven't worn them before," Jehan allowed. "Still a bit worried about why you're lying around moaning."

Bahorel clenched his fists and rolled over, allowing Jehan a good look at his half-healed lavender brushing of bruises. "_I have found the source of pure evil in the world_," he said passionately.

Jehan blinked. "So are we still talking about my boots or…?"

"_Barista!"_ Bahorel shook one fist at the sky.

After another single long-lasting blink Jehan settled down on the grass beside him, sitting cross-legged. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No I don't want to fucking talk about it," Bahorel said, before continuing to do just that.

Jehan nodded and made agreeing noises at the proper times as Bahorel glossed over the hell that his life had spiraled into over the past few weeks, and was so engrossed in his story of dickery and abuse that he missed how Jehan's eyes began to sparkle, twinkle, and do normally nonthreatening things that were in fact very dangerous indeed.

* * *

"Bahorel's in love!" Jehan announced.

"Is that a pig?" Grantaire craned his neck to peer up at the sky through the window in the small conference room where the Amis, save Feuilly and the man in question, were seated. The school had the Amis registered as an official campus club, and so they didn't have to pay the normal fees on the conference rooms at the back of the library, where they chose to meet once a week to plan out charity funds, protests, and any other stepping stones to world peace that Enjolras could think up.

Combeferre shot Grantaire a look and Bossuet elbowed him sharply. "What?"

The light in Jehan's eyes was glittering at a dangerous level as he looked at the resident cynic. "All that sneaking around he does? Those bruises?"

"Are you suggesting… Bahorel is into…?" Grantaire took a stabling swig from a flask he pulled from his shoulder bag.

Jehan shrugged. "I'm not sure; whatever he's into, he's into, I guess. But if I caught the story right, he still hasn't really had a good emotional contact with this barista yet—"

"Barista?" Combeferre asked quietly of himself. Bahorel's fights had been kept on the down low since that night at Feuilly's apartment, but the title registered something overheard in Combeferre's brain.

"—and so I'm going to write him a poem that he can give to his _amour_. Written word is so much easier than spoken, no? It'll be great… but I'm gonna have to skip today's meeting."

"Sure thing," Enjolras released him easily with a wave of his hand.

"Are you sure that this is a good idea?" Combeferre asked loudly as Jehan was bouncing out.

His smile, shot over his shoulder, was absolutely terrifying.

* * *

For the entirety of the "Barista Incident," it had been Bahorel finding the barista around his kiosk, on his way to his car, etcetera, until two days after his encounter with Jehan and his fucking yellow rain boots.

Then, the barista found him, walking to his car after math class.

Blood, spit, and dirt pooled on the edge of Bahorel's mouth as he hit the ground, mingling on his tongue, which instinctively probed the new cut on his lip.

"Well," he laughed into the dust of the alleyway, "that was a bit more direct than usual."

"I just wanted to make it clear that I despise everything about you. Especially your faggot friends." A piece of paper hit the ground near Bahorel's face, but he didn't take in what was written on it as the barista drove the tip of his shoe into his abdomen several times, driving out his breath and making bile rise in his throat, mingling with the taste of blood and debris. A weak cry leaked out between clenched teeth and his face was wet with something other than blood. Shuddering, Bahorel waited for several minutes before finding the ability to struggle into a sitting position, back braced against a wall. This was getting a bit out of hand. Now it wasn't a fight, it was a massacre.

Bahorel scooped up the crumpled paper and read the few lines printed there. Blood flooded his vision as well as his face, and his stomach churned threateningly beneath a new collection of bruises.

Oh God. Oh God.

_Your touch bruises my skin, and your words shake my bones,_

_Hold me close in an embrace of chains and whips,_

_But be kind…_

Jehan. _Jehan._

* * *

Jehan stopped in his tracks, hands still tangled in the strawberry hair draped over one shoulder, halfway braided. "What's going on?" he asked. The group was amassed not in their normal library conference room, but outside the library itself.

Enjolras, at the head of the group of gathered Amis, gave a glare set to bring down the sky while Combeferre massaged a headache, Joly looked at him in thinly veiled sympathy and Bossuet idly played a game on his phone. Feuilly and Bahorel were in the distance; approaching at as fast a pace as a freshly bruised Bahorel could stumble. Courfeyrac shoved his way to the front of the pack.

"The bear has invaded," he proclaimed, and aimed a finger at Jehan's chest. "All because of your smutty poem." In the distance, Javert turned around, a glint in his eye at Courf's well-known nickname for him.

"Speaking of smutty poems," Bahorel said once he was close, pulling at the front of Jehan's lacy shirt with his fists. A vein popped out in his neck. "You need to keep your tiny little nose out of my business." The tips of Jehan's yellow rain boots scraped the floor.

"_What what what!"_ Jehan scrambled for purchase on Bahorel's forearms, pressing down on a large purple bruise. Bahorel dropped the flowery bundle back onto his feet.

"We're banned from meeting on campus because we have a registered member who has been accused of sexual harassment. So thanks. Thanks for that." Enjolras shifted his backpack higher on one shoulder and brushed past Jehan on his way out. His voice was cold and hardened, and Jehan visibly paled at it. The group disbanded one by one, headed off in different directions.

Combeferre aimed a look at Bahorel on his way past. "Don't think I'm not close to figuring your problem out," he hissed.

Bahorel gave a weak smile, his split lip twisting horrendously. "I promise," he gushed, and Combeferre rolled eyes hidden behind thick glasses.

Jehan, meanwhile, was looking not unlike a kicked puppy. "Bahorel… I'm sorry. I didn't—"

"You know? Stop. Just stop. This is getting too much." One hand, knuckles cracked and scabbed, rubbed against a lump on his head. He winced. "This is like… it's growing beyond me."

Feuilly looked at him with a mix of pride and shame, laying his hand on Bahorel's shoulder.

"Like a mold?" Jehan offered, and then shrugged helplessly. "You'd think that a guy as poisonous as you say would have infected his own food by now."

Bahorel grunted a vague response and headed back to his car. He needed a drink. Feuilly watched his back as he left and then sighed off to work, thinking that this might be the end of Bahorel's confrontational streak.

He wasn't wrong, per say.

* * *

Bahorel had never been big on drinking, not excessively. A good binge helped him let off steam every once and awhile, usually when he was on parole or a watch list and couldn't get his fists dirty on another man's face. This was one of those times.

Stumbling out of the bar and into the crisp air, Bahorel spread his arms out over his head, feeling the pain lance down through his muscles from a litany of large bruises and abrasions. He began to walk past the edge of campus, to where he had left his car parked. He felt, for the first time in three weeks, like he could actually handle the barista. Actually—

Bahorel hit the ground. A discarded glass bottle shattered under one of his arms, digging deep into his right forearm. Pressure, and his skin gave way. Warm spread sickeningly fast over his hands, braced beneath him as he tried to stand. A shoe drove into his abdomen, and all breath was gone. And then a hand was on his shoulder, wrenching him into a sitting position, braced against a wall of one of the college's outbuildings. Stars danced down from the sky into Bahorel's vision, blurring it. His head was smashed back into the wall and for the first time since he was eight and fell from his bike, he let out a cry of pain, thick with tears.

His arm was clutched to his chest, warmth spreading through his sleeve and over his shirt, sticky red heat that smelled like iron. Fingers threaded into Bahorel's short hair, tugging and ripping his head back, baring his neck and jaw to the figure standing over him. The barista's face was cold, without emotion. "I almost enjoy how easy you are to fuck up," he said, and drew back a fist. Bahorel's head swam, and his arm was throbbing like hell, blood seeping everywhere. He couldn't open his right eye, and the right side of his face burned.

Bahorel closed his eyes as if the skin of his eyelids could protect him from the blow about to shatter his nose and or jaw. There was a pause as the barista drew back his arm an extra inch, eyes looking for the perfect place to land the end-all blow.

Glass shattered; droplets of something wet covered Bahorel's face, and he opened his eyes. The hand holding onto his bloodstained shirt loosened and the barista was looking at something behind him. Bahorel, confused behind happiness or relief, looked over his shoulder.

Grantaire stood swaying slightly at the edge of the nearest building, eyes wild and one arm still half raised from when he had thrown his beer bottle at the barista, missing by barely an inch. The bottle had shattered against the wall behind them.

"Well?" Grantaire demanded, voice surprisingly clear and steady, "either punch the poor bastard or fuck off!"

The barista didn't seem to like the odds being fair and pushed Bahorel down before beating a hasty retreat. Bahorel dragged himself up and stumbled over to where Grantaire stood, still swaying, face a bit paler than before.

"Thanks, R," Bahorel said, "I owe you one."

"I'm gonna puke," Grantaire replied, and then did just that, getting some on Bahorel's shoes. "Sorry."

"No, no man, it's cool. Let's get home."

Grantaire looked like he was about to nod but just emptied the rest of his stomach instead, trying to aim away from his bloodstained friend's extremities. Bahorel took that as his agreement, drawing one of Grantaire's arms over his shoulders and getting him bundled into his truck, taking a swift look at the cut on his arm. More of a gash, really, it could use a second opinion.

Bahorel hit his signals and began to make his way, snaking to Joly and Bossuet's apartment. At a particularly long red light, Grantaire tossed his cookies once more, mostly bile, and as he was hacking the taste out of his mouth, he paused long enough to glance over his shoulder at Bahorel.

"You've been getting your ass handed to you. By a barista."

"Shut up," Bahorel said, although his voice was tired and soft.

Grantaire laughed quietly, the wind from the open window lifting his tangled hair from his forehead.

"We're fucked, man," he said as the light changed, and Bahorel tightened his grip on the wheel. Other than that, he had no response.

* * *

Joly, for his credit, did not cuss them out for showing up on his doorstep at midnight, covered in blood, debris, and alcoholic vomit.

Musichetta, his girlfriend, however, did. For five whole minutes the fiery lady let it loose on them, revealing hidden pockets of language that neither of them knew she possessed. Then Bossuet ushered her out for a midnight movie, something she could never say no to, and left them to their work.

Bahorel's arm was stitched up with Joly tutting to himself in the background, face paling at the amount of blood that was landing on his kitchen table, which Grantaire suspected he would rather throw out than try to disinfect.

"How do you guys keep ending up in these situations?" he demanded as he washed his gloved hands in the sink and Bahorel gently gripped his right fist to test the stitches in his forearm.

"In my defense I have never been beat up by a barista," Grantaire called out from the bathroom, where he was bent over the toilet bowl in anticipation.

Joly stopped in his tracks and Bahorel sighed heavily. The truth comes from the mouths of drunks. Or something like that.

"You've been picking fights with that psycho barista who has a stand in the quad?" he asked, eyes bugging out more than usual.

"You know him?" Bahorel asked. "Wow, I am spinning a bit. Should I lie down?"

"Yeah, yeah, sure, whatever. That barista is the bane of everyone's existence. He picks on the weak and throws trash, but he never gets caught doing it. He's insane, almost threatened to lock me in the trunk of my car, once."

"The bastard," Grantaire added from the bathroom.

"Dickouche." Bahorel was staring at Joly's kitchen ceiling.

"What even…? But, more importantly, he's unclean." Joly began to pack his medical supplies.

"Now, Joly, let's keep it civil. No need to insult the man's religion." There was the sound of Grantaire coughing into the toilet following his interjection into the conversation.

"I'm talking about his food. Guy's disgusting, and still no one does anything. I would call the health inspector on him, but he'd probably find some way out of it. I bet he even has mold growing on there, somewhere… yeah, I'd bet my left foot everything on that stand is rotten." Not much of a bet, considering that Joly thought that there was some form of hazardous mold on everything underneath the sun, and a few things yet to be discovered by man.

Bahorel sat up. "Say that again."

"…I'd bet my left foot that everything on that stand is rotten?" Joly tried.

"I said something about his religion." Grantaire entered the kitchen with a damp washcloth slung around his neck, and his hair damp from the tap.

"_You'd think that a guy as poisonous as you say would have infected his own food by now."_

Bahorel's smile was full of blood and joy. "Joly, welcome to Operation: Fuck Starbucks. I need you to get your hands on something for me."

Joly's eyes were even buggier now, but Grantaire had a dangerous smile on his face. "Sounds like fun," he said, and gave an almost experimental crack of his knuckles.

"First we need to make a call."

"To who?"

"To the health department, of course. We need to report a dickouche selling tainted food."

* * *

"What have you got for me, Doc?" Bahorel asked Joly when they met by the barista's kiosk midnight the next night. Grantaire stood idly by, on lookout but in reality he just watched the drama unfold.

Joly pulled out a petri dish from his backpack. "This fungus is known to breed easily in disposable food left open to the elements, and is a proof of poor food management. Finding this anywhere on his kiosk will automatically get his license to sell food revoked indefinitely. Which means that he will be banned from school property as well, since he threatened the students and faculty by selling food he knew was tainted."

"Perfect," Bahorel gushed, and then bowed with a sweep of his arm. "After you, Doc."

Joly could barely suppress his pleased smile as he thought of finally being able to walk through the quad without being verbally abused. He approached the stand with the fungi in his hand.

Grantaire stuck his thumbs into his pockets and began to whistle the James Bond theme. Bahorel smacked his arm. "Stop that."

"Shaken, not stirred," he retorted.

"Both of you shush. I want to get this finished before I catch my death from cold," Joly was kneeling by the closed kiosk, prying open the flaps, before he paused in confusion.

"It's like, sixty five degrees," Bahorel noted. No response. "Joly?"

"This isn't right," Joly muttered under his breath. "This should all be kept refrigerated, covered from the air…" he continued to poke around in the booth, showing that the muffins and cakes were still on their display shelves. "And what's this…?" he scraped at a grayish green substance and then looked at his finger. "GAH!" he slammed back onto the ground, scrambling away on all fours. "AH!" he rubbed his finger furiously on his jacket sleeve and on the ground.

Bahorel shushed him furiously. "Dude, shut _up_, he goes to…"

"_Hey!"_

"…night school."

"Run?" Grantaire asked.

"Run and hide." Bahorel tugged the freaking Joly to his feet and lead the sprint away from the shadowed figure approaching, at too fast a pace. Grantaire skidded to a halt and tugged Bahorel after him, towards a low brick wall that edged a walkway out of the quad. He slid over it, jeans tearing on the bricks, Joly and Bahorel tumbling after him into the shadows. They all held their breaths, Joly holding, vice-like, onto Grantaire's arm, as he spread his arms out to their full length, holding Joly and Bahorel pinned back against the wall.

The sound of the approaching barista softened and slowed. The night was taut with pressure and silence.

And then:

"FUCK YOooU!"

The three all froze at the familiar lyrics blasting from Bahorel's pocket.

"_Shitshitshitshit—_"Bahorel fumbled for his phone, the text alert tone blaring once again as Courfeyrac texted him three times in quick succession.

**Courf: **hey b i kno its l8 but i need sum peanut butter

**Courf: **no questions

**Courf: **im just let myself into ur apartment w/ my spare key

There was the sound of the barista turning quickly on his heel, shoes clicking against the cement as he sprinted forward towards their hiding place.

"SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT!" Bahorel launched himself forward, Grantaire and Joly following along behind, fear clouding their breaths and jackets flapping and snapping behind them. They ran until the barista fell away in the distance, but they did not stop until they were at Enjolras and Combeferre's apartment, panting in the hallway outside their door, hands on their knees. Joly was sitting on the ground, head tilted back as he took in great gasping breaths.

"I am going to kill Courf," Bahorel swore. "Honestly, this time. I've got connections. I could get my hands on an unregistered gun, easy."

"I'll help you hide the body," Grantaire replied smoothly.

After a moment of chest-heaving and gasping silence, Joly spoke up. "I could probably set up the anatomy class to buy his corpse."

Bahorel nodded, a smile tugging at one side of his mouth. "And then we'll use the money to get smashed."

Grantaire frowned at his feet. "Actually, we'll probably end up using that money to pay the fine for calling in a false report."

That sobered up any potential smiles that Joly and Bahorel could have had.

"I'm still going to get drunk," Bahorel said as he quietly used his spare key on Combeferre and Enjolras's door. "God help me, I don't want to remember any of this for as long as I live."

* * *

"There is a God, and he is generous."

"Good morning to you too, Dr. Joliarde, but I'm not a theology major." Bahorel groaned as he sat up in bed. They had hidden out at Enjolras and Combeferre's apartment for an hour before going their separate ways. By the time Bahorel had gotten home it was four in the morning. He glanced over his bedside clock and groaned louder, more keening, as he saw that he had been asleep for only three hours.

"You need to get to campus right now, Bahorel."

"Ehh…"

"_You have got to see this. _I'm calling Grantaire—" Joly hung up his phone and Bahorel slumped his way through half of his morning routine before hopping in his truck and heading to the campus. As he walked towards the quad, he spotted Grantaire, looking as well-rested as he felt, and Joly, looking far too pleased with himself.

"What…" Bahorel stopped himself, eyes locked on the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

Javert, the old FBI agent turned campus security, was standing by the barista, who was getting interviewed by two men in suits. One of them carried a clipboard; the other was elbow deep in a briefcase that was open on the counter of the coffee stand. As the three watched, the man pulled out one arm and squinted at a vial of colored liquid. The man's face paled considerably and he stowed the vial away before approaching the barista and talking to him in an angry tone.

And then, glory of glories, the man turned the barista around and handcuffed him.

_Handcuffed him_.

"I thought that you didn't have time to plant the fungus?" Bahorel demanded happily of Joly. He was half laughing in joy and relief.

Joly's wide smile cracked a bit. "I didn't."

A moment of silence as they all took this new turn in stride.

"What?" Grantaire asked.

"I didn't have time to plant the fungus."

"Then you mean…" in horror, they all looked at the coffee stand that they and their friends had snacked from for a greater part of the year. Now, the agents were undoing a long piece of yellow plastic and securing it over the stand, their faces and hands covered protectively.

"I'm gonna fucking puke," Grantaire said in a quiet, horrified voice.

"Why?" All three spun around to see Enjolras approaching them. Combeferre was coming from another direction, strides purposeful.

"Uh…" Bahorel looked from one to another.

"That barista's stand is _crawling _with infectious germs and viruses, and a strain of fungus that when ingested causes the lining of the stomach to—"Grantaire clapped one hand over Joly's mouth. Enjolras was pale, Combeferre even more so, moving his tongue around in his mouth and remembering his weekly habit of buying a muffin.

"No more," Combeferre said sharply, pointing at Bahorel.

"No more what?"

"_I don't know. No more._"

"Right, gotcha."

Enjolras sighed and moved one hand through his blond hair. "Well I'm happy that this is over. But we still don't have a place to meet every week."

"Yeah." Bahorel scuffed one shoe ruefully, and then thought of something suddenly.

* * *

**Bahorel: **you owe me fuckin big time courf

**Courf: **im at ur mercy

**Bahorel: **find me a place on campus but not on campus big enough for us to meet every week

**Courf: **thats just vague enough to work

* * *

"Are you sure this is going to work?" Jehan asked in a whisper, as if he could be heard all the way across campus at Javert's offices from the inner room of the Musain Café, a rundown little hole in the wall joint that had a perfectly large drink menu and a selection of separate meeting rooms apart from the main eating area.

"According to current land specs, this is a part of campus, and therefore cannot refuse a school club meeting space," Bahorel recited the email that Courf had sent him earlier that week, "but according to the tax payments for the past decade it is outside of the school's campus."

Jehan nodded, still a bit unsure, and ducked into his drink. "I really am sorry," he said.

"And I really cannot hold it against you because you inspired the plan that actually saved me from daily asskickings. One condition, though."

"What?"

"No more yellow rain boots."

Jehan looked like he wanted to disagree, face twisted up, but then sighed and clinked glasses with Bahorel. "Deal."

"So, this is it?" Enjolras looked around the motley room, with mismatching chairs and tables, and a large antique map of France tacked to one wall.

"Don't be too quick to judge," Bahorel said, leaning back in his chair in a way that was almost familiar. "It's better than nothing."

Enjolras took another look around, watching over his shoulder as Grantaire and Bossuet entered, talking animatedly about something. Bossuet tripped on an uneven floor tile, and Grantaire stopped his fall with one hand, signaling the bartender for a drink with the other. The dark haired man tilted his head back and laughed. Through the wide glass window, Combeferre was seen walking down the street, nose stuck in a book. He took several steps past the door before he realized what it was, and he straightened imperiously before entering.

"It's good," he decided, sliding into a seat at the head of the table. A waitress caught his eye and he mouthed _water _at her. Blushing and flouncing, she had it at his hands in record time.

Grantaire swung himself into the seat beside him, a bottle of beer already half empty in his hands. "Well, _that _was an experience, I tell you. One I never hope to go through as long as I breathe."

"Praise God in heaven above, may Jehan never try to right a flirtatious sonnet ever again," Bahorel raised his glass high.

"I'll drink to that." Enjolras lifted his sensible nonalcoholic drink beside Grantaire. Jehan had the decency to blush.

As they all took stabling drinks, the door to the café opened wide, and the hero of the night walked in, followed by a nervous looking young man their age with thick black hair and a frankly aristocratic nose.

"Hey guys, this is Marius Pontmercy, in my government class!"

Bahorel nodded amicably to the young man, set down his drink, and then threw himself at Courf.

"Nice to meet you," Enjolras shook Marius's hand while Courf yelled and Bahorel threw punches, flying across the floor.

"Nice to meet you too. What…?"

"Don't ask… ever."

Enjolras completely expected Marius to beat a hasty retreat, but instead, almost against his own instincts, he took a seat.

As Bahorel pinned Courf to the ground and drew back a hand for a controlled fake punch to the nose, stopping inches from the member. He enjoyed how Courf flinched and sweated, and the sight of tendons flexing beneath his skin.

The bruises were fading to an almost peaceful shade of lavender.

* * *

**Next time, on _Cyan_: Red, or: Now You See Me**


	5. Red, or: Now You See Me

**Haha, quick update. Woo! A short chapter, taking place after Cyan. And so begins the overarching plot of the narrative, aka e/R.**

**Beta-ed by the luminescent paradorx~**

* * *

Enjolras had a policy about his shared apartment with Combeferre. It was one of the few on-campus apartments available to undergrads, and possibly the largest one of the bunch, and so it tended to attract the Amis most nights, weekends, and random holidays. The policy was that you could show up whenever you pleased, so long as you did not disturb anyone already inside who may be sleeping or studying. And so each person deemed worthy was outfitted with a key, in case they needed to enter at such a time that someone (Enjolras) was sleeping or studying.

Grantaire broke that policy, into thousands of tiny pieces, as he pounded and pounded on the apartment door loud enough for Enjolras to hurry in socked feet over the floors to get to the door, worried about any possible complaints from his neighbors.

The blond yanked open the door, about to snap out some comment concerning the hour or the fact that he was just about to go to bed, but everything stuck in his throat at the sight of Grantaire leaning against the doorframe.

"Sorry," he said shortly, mouth full of the color red and dribbling a bit, "but I seem to have lost my key."

Enjolras made a strangled noise in his throat. Grantaire looked blearily at him, one eye swollen shut. The other gleamed brightly, a slice of blue-green almost hidden beneath a loose piece of curly black hair. "Can I… come in?" he ventured. Enjolras moved out of the way and R gratefully slunk inside.

"I'll be… try not to bleed on anything," Enjolras finally spoke up as Grantaire stretched out on the couch in the living area.

"As you command, Fearless Leader."

Refusing to make a comment on that gravelly statement, Enjolras stomped back into his bedroom and tugged his phone from the charger on the wall. Then, he had to pause. Combeferre was off in another city, wooing his parents into thinking that he might actually maybe get a significant other this year (like he had convinced them the year before, and the year before that), Joly was on a long weekend camping trip with Bossuet and Musichetta (God alone knows how they convinced him out into the wilderness), and Bahorel would probably take one look at Grantaire and tell him that he'd seen worse.

Marius it was.

"Hello?" he sounded just like the perpetually lovesick puppy he was, even at eleven at night on a Sunday.

"Grantaire's at my apartment," Enjolras said without preamble.

"Well, he has to be _somewhere_." Marius's smug tone made Enjolras curl and uncurl his fists.

"Combeferre isn't here," Enjolras insisted, kneading one hand at his forehead, a twitch beginning in his eye.

"He's probably somewhere, too."

"_Pontmercy._" Enjolras's tight voice snapped like a whip through the phone.

"If I knew your last name I would be hissing it back at you," Marius shifted gears, "Grantaire will be fine. If he's drunk, put a movie from the eighties on and give him a bucket. If he's been in a fight, give him some ice and a beer and then put a movie from the eighties on anyway."

"I am not the right person for this."

"You're right; you're not. Now if you'll excuse me, Cosette just got back from the restroom…"

"Pontmercy I swear to God!"

"Good luck, Enjolras, fight the good fight, I believe in you, et cetera." The call ended and Enjolras steamed silently, making notes to kill Marius in his sleep.

Enjolras emerged from the kitchen and heard the sound of the water running in the bathroom. He set about tracking down any DVDs he could remember having, and after a twenty minute search managed to come up with a well-preserved copy of Ferris Bueller's Day Off_. _Good enough. Enjolras dumped some ice into a plastic bag and set it on the coffee table, wrapped in a paper towel.

As he set up the television and DVD player, Grantaire emerged from the bathroom, his face cleaned up and his dark hair still damp. The sleeves of his long shirt were still stained and dotted with blood, but he didn't seem to notice as he dragged one across his forehead. His breath, as he got closer, reeked of alcohol. He picked up the bag of ice and settled it on the crown of his head in a practiced, easy way, pinning it down with one hand. He stilled smelled like a distillery, but seemed to have skipped the nausea part of drunkenness.

"Sorry for showing up," he said in a heavy voice as he flopped down onto the couch with a pained sound. "But my apartment was too far away to walk."

"I'm glad you didn't try to drive," Enjolras said, sitting down in his armchair. He pressed a button on the remote and the movie began to play. Hopefully Grantaire would just watch and fall asleep in a drunken stupor without Enjolras needing to do anything special. Normally Combeferre handled this sort of thing.

Unfortunately it did not go as planned. "Cameron Frye dies at the end," Grantaire said bluntly, nearly twenty minutes into the movie. He shifted and set down the bag of half melted ice onto the coffee table.

It took Enjolras a moment to understand. "What?" he asked.

Grantaire swallowed heavily. "At the end of the movie... he's left there with his shit dad, right? After destroying all that man ever cared about... 'more than life itself' he said. Well, if he loves it more than himself he definitely loves it more than his son. And while everyone else is focusing on Ferris, and his sister, they're so funny, right? Well that's all good, but they just leave him there... just leave Cameron there with the wreck and his dad on his way home, we don't know what goes down, you don't see it, but you know... you know that he's not gonna make it out." His voice was low and steady, and his fingers kneaded at the armrest on the couch.

Enjolras didn't trust himself to do anything more than mutter, "People don't think like that."

Grantaire shrugged, an easy roll of his shoulders, and continued to trace empty shapes onto the arm of the couch with his hand. Enjolras watched it, and he noted how Grantaire's long sleeves were, as they always were, rolled only halfway up his forearm. He couldn't remember ever seeing Grantaire in anything with shorter sleeves. Now, as he moved his hand around, the sleeve climbed higher up his forearm, and Enjolras thought he saw a flash of color beneath it, barely emerging, but then with a sigh Grantaire slid off of the couch and onto the ground, tugging his sleeves back over his hands.

"People don't think like that, but I do. Singularity, that's me." He frowned at the television. "Turn it off."

Enjolras did as he was told. The silence as the movie shut off was almost deafening.

"Most people, they don't catch that, but when I was little... I knew. I knew that Cameron Frye dies at the end of Ferris Bueller's Day Off." His voice was deadly soft and he leaned his head back against the couch.

"That's horrible," Enjolras interjected in a quiet voice when Grantaire paused. It wasn't harsh or judgmental; just an observation.

Blue-green eyes swiveled over to stare at him, fire given human form, a man with revolution housed in his mouth, tucked away amongst his teeth and tongue.

"That's life. People don't really consider that it keeps going after the final scene, and they just reach for that _one moment _but they don't think about what comes after." His voice was thickened by bitterness. "What's after for you?"

"What?"

"What happens for you after you save the world, Fearless Leader? What about after your revolution?"

"Why don't you ever talk like this at meetings?" Enjolras snapped, suddenly very tired of the conversation, of how Grantaire's words were weighted, tugging downwards slightly, a slur that was never gone from him. A drunk, a waste of his own mind. It made Enjolras angry, that he was talking to a brick wall that could be so much more to the cause.

Grantaire waves his hand. "Because that's everyone else. This is just you."

With an empty thump, Enjolras's heart dropped down his chest, the tone of the word_you_catching in his lungs and making it hard for him to breathe. Grantaire saw the astonishment cross his face, and smiled, his split lip nearly tugging open. His eyes were fathomless, but they were crashing, waves against rocks.

Enjolras was so used to overlooking Grantaire, shouting comments from the corner, feet propped up on the table, calling out useless things that only served to derail the actual conversation taking place. But now, alone in the silent apartment at midnight, he was speaking honestly, in an almost poetic way, and Enjolras felt embarrassed to be witnessing it alone, as if he was trespassing on something not meant for him.

He was Apollo, the sun, looking down over everything and everyone, seeking to illuminate the world, and Grantaire was the ocean, deeper than could ever be seen, blue and green and dangerous to a man built from fire and air.

Enjolras stared down into the depths, and wondered what it would feel like to take a swim.

Grantaire tilted his head back, baring up his neck, and he did not open his eyes again.

* * *

Enjolras snapped awake, draped awkwardly over his armchair, and promptly hit the ground with a loud slap. As he bit back a curse, he tilted his head and saw a pair of bare feet aimed towards him, standing at the entrance of the kitchen. He followed the dark-haired legs attached to the feet, to the boxers—quickly passing the boxers—and meeting the curiously twinkling eyes of Grantaire. His borrowed sweatshirt—one of Combeferre's—was rolled up to his forearms, no more, and he had a bowl of cereal in one hand.

"Sorry," he said around a mouthful of fruit loops, "I didn't mean to wake you."

"You didn't wake me up." Enjolras twisted in an obscene way in an effort to right himself, and Grantaire's cereal was suddenly feeling the full force of his cyan eyes until the leader was back on his feet. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

Grantaire winced. "Pretty banged up. Nothing beyond repair, though." He seemed to grow a bit stiff as he considered what to say next. "Uh… Enjolras, I'm… I didn't…" His face was a bright scarlet.

Enjolras's heart was beating through his chest. _Cameron Frye dies at the end. _"It wasn't really—"

"I don't remember—"

They looked at each other silently, their words crashing together.

"I was just… I didn't say or do anything really off my rocker last night, right?" Grantaire laughed lightly, obviously ashamed of the fact he couldn't recall his interactions with Enjolras the night before. Blotto was less of a tragedy when the things he forgot didn't involve spending the night alone with Enjolras camping out in his armchair, mere feet away from where he had woken up, curled up on the floor.

"No," Enjolras swallowed heavily. "No, you just slept."

Grantaire released a breath he didn't realize he had been holding. "Okay. Great." He went back to his cereal, and missed the look at Enjolras kept focused on him, eyes like he was peering down into the sea, the depths that no one could decipher.

Then, as Grantaire checked over his shoulder, the force of Enjolras's gaze shivering down his back, he looked away, a bright flash of heat rising to his face. Red draped itself around Enjolras, igniting him for something he didn't understand.

He walked stiffly to his room and shut the door, intent on getting something resembling sleep.

* * *

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